Sony A77 Review

Here is my review of the Sony Alpha SLT-A77VQS translucent mirrored camera “DSLR.” DSLR is in quotes because it is not a Single Lens Reflex camera. The mirror inside the A77 is fixed and translucent and doesn’t open to expose the sensor. Rather, when a photo is snapped, the light penetrates the translucent mirror to the sensor and continues to reflect up to the eyepiece giving the photographer continuous focus. This allows the camera to shoot up to 12 frames per second. (at high enough shutter speeds)

My photography background

I have been a full-time, professional photographer for more than ten years now. I am an original Nikon shooter and have used their DSLRs, flashes and lenses exclusively until last year. In 2011 I added two Canon cameras to the mix because of their video capabilities. I learned to shoot photos on the Canon with the same speed I could use my Nikons. Two weeks ago, I added the Sony A77 to my collection and all I can say is “WOW!”

The Sony A77 Review

There are so many features on the camera that sold me on buying it. I will comment on some of my favorites here and if you have questions, please leave a comment in the box below.

Click on the tabs below to see my take on some of the camera’s features

HDR Painting

If you haven’t been introduced to HDR photography, then check out Stuck In Customs. Trey Radcliff takes some out-of-this-world HDR shots. Following his blog is how I found out about the A77 in the first place. I can’t speak for how Trey would use the camera, but the Sony A77 does a fantastic job with combining three images in the auto HDR mode. Here is a shot I took last night of a bookstore in Denver, CO.

The camera takes three shots at different shutter speeds (I was shooting in Manual) and then combines them. It takes about 8-9 seconds for the camera to do the combining, but I can certainly live with that delay for out of the camera HDR shots like these!

12 FPS

As you know, the Sony A77 can shoot up to 12 frames per second. Because the mirror doesn’t have to move up and down, this speed makes it the fastest camera on the market…even faster than cameras costing twice as much. It actually takes you a bit off guard when you first hear it take this many shots in one second. As a wedding photographer, we don’t normally have it on the high speed mode except in a couple of situations. But, for sports and action photography, I can see this being a HUGE benefit.

So, I went down to the local skate park and ask a couple of kids if they would do some jumps right next to me. I put the Sony A77 into the Sports/Action mode and shot in jpg. All images in this page are strait out of the camera. I did not enhance them at all before posting them. The three above are as the boarder approached me. The camera performed quite well. You can see more shots here.

Miniature

The Sony A77 has a “Miniature Mode” under the Creative Styles section. I was curious, so I decided to photography some of my kids’ Legos set up in a battle scene. When you turn on the miniature mode, there is a band that is across the screen. This band shows where your image will be in focus. The rest of the image is considerably out of focus. Similar to having a wide open aperture, but with a band extending horizontally across the screen, the miniature mode creates a really blurry surrounding area.

Since I am primarily a wedding shooter, I can see using this on some of the cake details and on the rings. It will make a really cool effect.

These are the flowers I bought for my wife for our anniversary. I used a Minolta 28-135 lens in Macro mode, shooting jpg in full manual for this shot. I did try the “Macro” scene mode on the Sony but didn’t like it as much as this one.

RAW vs. JPG

If you want to have the RAW vs. JPG argument, this is neither the time nor the place. There are plenty of other blogs where you can hash it out. I wanted to mention this because some of the very cool features available in the Sony A77 aren’t available if you are a RAW shooter. I primarily shoot RAW. That being said, most of the shots I have taken through this camera have had to be .jpg. Here is a short list of things that don’t work when you are shooting with RAW as an option.

None of the picture effects will work. This includes the miniature mode, the toy camera mode, the pop color mode the HDR Painting mode or the rich-tone mode.

Auto HDR – Though the Auto Dynamic Range Optimizer will work however. For portraits, these modes aren’t perfect at all. I will still use flash to offset lighting differences rather than relying on a mode.

Auto HDR

Just for kicks, I wanted to try the Auto HDR mode when it was super bright outside my house. I took this shot with a 5-stop exposure value difference. The camera did a nice job with this considering the difference in light from inside to out.

One of my favorite features thus far is the in-camera steady shot. It makes a HUGE difference in which shutter speeds you can use. Keep in mind, I will almost never go above ISO 800 for a shot, so in a dark reception, I might find that it is necessary to use something less than 1/50th of a second for a shutter speed. Typically, I have to brace my camera, hold my breath, take a few shots and hope it is in focus. This is even when I use a VR lens.

With the Sony, I have found that I am able to shoot at 1/20th of a second and it does a fantastic job keeping it in focus.

18 Comments

michael
on February 14, 2012 at 3:50 am

Hi Bill,

Won't be lo0ng and you'll be selling all that other gear to but MINOLTA lenses for your SONY. Keep a Nikon for back-up. You won't need the Canons as the Sony's video is far superior. Check out the photos on our site… I sell MINOLTA lenses too and I'm always willing to yak with a fellow SONY shooter and share our experience and tips 😀 http://www.abetterdj.net
321-412-3878 Michael

So far, I am completely lovin' the Sony A77. Sure, there are some features you can't use while shooting RAW, but that is just a quick menu switch. I bought a Sony flash too (Around $400) and it is far superior to my Nikon flashes. Thanks for the comment Michael!

Update 8-18-12
We are now on our 3rd, 4th, and 5th Sony A77. We rotate our cameras out before they lose resale value because we shoot so much! we’ve now taken over 100,000 photos and shot a few hundred hours of video with these wonderful cameras and love them as much as the day we got our 1st one.

I didn’t used to like Sony lenses at all and preferred to shoot strictly Minolta, but Sony has recently come out with some excellent lenses. They’ve taken a major step forward toward carrying on the Minolta tradition of fine glass. In the last year we have added the:
Sony 16-50 2.8
Sony 35MM 1.8
Sony 18-135
Sony 50MM 1.8
all of which are fine lenses to go with your Sony A77. We’ve also added a few more legendary Minolta lenses that are a must have if your budget allows. The Minolta 500MM is the only 500MM lens that has auto focus and it is fast and sharp. The Minolta 80-200 2.8 is probably the best lens Minolta ever made and if you can make room in your bag for a big heavy lens you’ll love the photos! Mine lives on one of my A77s full time!

I am loving the A77 for what I do with it. I use it now during the pre-ceremony for the details at weddings and for a few other things. The only limitation to the Sony camera is it’s off-camera flash system. Nikon has Sony beat hands down on this. Since we use lots of OCF, I switch to the Nikon stuff after the lights go down.

Hi Bill,
We just added a Tokina 11-16 2.8 Pro lens to our arsenal. Excellent lens for super wide angle and wide video on the A77. Here’s some photos and a video we shot with it and our Sony 18-135 and my Minolta 80-200 2.8G last weekend at a Pat Travers concert.http://www.abetterdj.net/PAT_TRAVERS_BAND_PHOTOS.php
Best,
Michael

I have an A77 and I don’t know if I got a bad one or what, but all of my images are grainy no matter the ISO. Any suggestions? I find my self always going back to the A700. And I can’t seem to get my AB’s to work with the A77, but they work perfect with my A700 and 7D,

Thanks for your comment. I don’t know what to tell you about the images being grainy at any ISO. I haven’t seen much grainyness until I get over about ISO 800. We also mainly shoot Nikon for our wedding work. I use the A77 only when I don’t need to have off-camera flash. I had a few Sony flashes and could not get them to work at all. So, I sold two of the three flashes and kept one. Now, when I have to use off-camera flash, I will set my Nikon flash to a slave mode and fire it with the Sony flash. It is a special feature of the Nikon flash and will work off of any flash. Sorry I couldn’t be more help, but it seems that you might have gotten a faulty camera if it is always grainy.

I bought my Sony A77 around 8 months ago and gave my A350 to my wife. She loved the A77 so much I bought her one too! We have a Sony Macro (30mm), the lens that came with although I’d never call it a kit lens, a Minolta 70 x 300 Beercan (takes amazingly sharp images) and recently the Tamron 90mm Macro. I have a HVL-F58AM flash but struggling a little using it for Macro.

I have never used the 70-300, but I will have to check it out. I am still loving the A77 and use it for every wedding we shoot. The only thing that I don’t really love is the proprietary hot shoe. I would much prefer to use a normal hotshoe so that I could put on a pocket wizard or similar. I hate on camera flash, but it is very difficult to use Sony’s system. When the flashes come out, we switch to Nikon for the rest of the wedding. Much more user friendly.

Thank you so much. I am looking into that transmitter right now. I have some cowboy studio transmitters and receivers for my Nikons, so hopefully I can just get the transmitter and use it with my current ones.

I have been using a 77 for the last 3 months in Europe, Middle East and Australia. Loving it. Previously had a 55 that met with a salt water demise… Also just got a 65 which is fast turning into my best friend. Can do much of what the 77 can do but with a simpler interface. I also use a 43m Sony flash without problems on the shoe or as a wireless/remote slave.
I still shoot film on my canon eos5, but am almost sold on the digital world 🙂

Does the Sony a77 do a good job with post-production HDR? Or just with “in camera” HDR? I am more so interested in post-production HDR with the use of software (such as Trey Ratcliff offers tutorials on) and Im wondering if this camera is good with this? Can anyone help?

Trey’s process is probably much better as far as the finished product. That being said, the auto-hdr is great for stuff that you wouldn’t otherwise get because of harsh shadowing. I have used it a lot.

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